Your Tree Isn't Sick — Its Soil Is

A tree in trouble tends to show it from the outside in: the tips of the branches die back first, the leaves come out smaller than they used to, and the canopy thins until you can see sky through it. People reach for a spray. The cause is usually underground.

Feeder roots are shallow and they spread wide — well past the drip line, in the top foot or so of soil. That is exactly the zone that gets damaged. Construction traffic and parked vehicles compact it until water and air cannot get through. Grading strips it off. Years of runoff wash the structure out of it. Lawns take their share of the nutrients. None of that shows on the surface, and all of it starves the tree slowly enough that nobody connects the two.

Root feeding puts nutrients down into that zone directly, rather than scattering them on top of turf that will absorb them first. Fresh top soil rebuilds ground that has been stripped or compacted, and gives roots somewhere to grow into again. Neither is a rescue for a tree that is structurally gone, but for one that is simply hungry, it is the difference between recovering over a couple of seasons and declining until it has to come out.

Newly planted trees are the other case worth mentioning. The first two or three years decide whether a tree establishes properly, and that is when soil support pays back most.

Got a tree that is thinning out and you do not know why? Call Phillip Tree Service & Landscaping at (678) 663-8845. We will look at what it is growing in before we suggest anything.